Walking Tour of Van Buren Encourages Ideas for More Walkable Future

More communities around the country are realizing they have to reckon with the automobile-centered environment they created. The Frontier Metropolitan Planning Organization recently invited national community design expert Mark Fenton to take walking tours of Van Buren and Fort Smith. Van Buren’s city, school district and chamber of commerce leaders attended the tour to see what they are doing right and what they could be doing better to create more walkable spaces, which lead to a better quality of life. While the group walked a portion of Main Street from the Van Buren Public Library to the heart of downtown, Fenton encouraged discussion of problem areas and possible solutions, many of which can first be done on a temporary basis to test whether they work.